Unfortunately
by GreatReader3
Summary: Artemis Fowl cannot remember... An alternative ending to TLG; submission to AEC; oneshot


**Hello! **This was a one-shot written for Kellycat77's AEC contest after she asked me to. So, if you like this, you have to thank Kellycat77, who I would have not written it without.

The words in italics are taken from Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian page 327

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any characters, settings or other things that you can recognize from the_ Artemis Fowl_ books. These are purely Eoin Colfer's. I also do not own the paragraphs at the beginning, as these are Eoin Colfer's words.

So, without further ado, here it is! Happy reading!

* * *

_Two more breaths passed, then several rapid jerky ones, then Artemis's eyes opened. Both a startling blue. The eyes were initially wide with shock, then fluttered like the wings of a jarred moth._

_"Be calm," said Holly."You are safe now." _

_Artemis frowned, trying to focus. It was clear that his faculties had not totally returned, and he did not yet remember the people leaning over him._

_"Stay back," he said. "You don't know what you're dealing with."_

_Holly took his hand. "We do know you, Artemis. And you know us. Try to remember." _

He did try. He tried and tried, but he still could not remember. The simple act of him being alive was overwhelming to his brain, and it set and ocean between him and his memories, with only ancient instincts and raw feelings left over, all logic gone. And things can get messy with only ancient instincts and raw feelings to govern one's actions.

Now, anyone knows that when three strangers are standing over you, instincts tell you something bad has happened, even if it was quite the opposite at the moment. And when those instincts take over, you generally feel scared. And when those two are put together with no room for logic, things can get nasty, as they did.

Artemis became instantly alert, a fog of sorts lifting. He remembered the girl's previous words. _Be calm. You are safe now. We do know you. ... you know us._ And since he didn't have memories of friendship, he jumped to the conclusion that they were enemies.

He looked at the girl, and only then noticed she was only three feet tall, yet was definitely adult. _A midget, maybe? _He filed the observation away for later, as height really did not matter in this situation. Or the pointed ears. They very well could be prosthetic. Instead he decided to deal with the most important matter.

"I think not, girl." He still felt groggy, but his voice was confident. The girl stumbled backwards, with a shocked look on her face.

"W-w-what do you mean?" He tried to stand up, but failed miserably, so went with sitting and glaring accusingly at the girl.

"I'm not safe yet, nor am I going to be calm. Not until I am really safe." She looked at him with a hurt look on his face, but he did not care. He did not know her. He did not care about her emotions. Or at least, he told himself that. In all actuality, he felt a stir of guilt somewhere inside him. It was like something was trying to break through to him. He saw a fleeting image of the girl. She was leaning over him, her face revealed and then she lent down, as if to kiss him. But it was gone before he could find out if she was going to kiss him. The image was forgotten about, but the guilt stayed.

"But... you are safe, Artemis! You are!" She kept muttering _you are safe _under her breath, as if she was trying to convince herself. Another stir of guilt came with every word he heard her mutter. It weakened him the tiniest bit. He then realized she knew his name, yet he did not know hers.

"You know my name, yet I do not know yours. If I am supposedly safe, then I should at least know your name, no?" She looked at him.

"Holly. My name is Holly." This was enough for a number of images to come back to him, and as fleeting as they were, they had a huge impact. He saw Holly sitting on a cot, glaring at him. He saw her doing some form of hypnotation (sp?) to make him fall asleep. He saw her using that same form of hypnotation (sp?) to ask him if he had hid anything. He saw her battling off these huge... living beings... at a park of sorts. He saw her appear next to him in at the opera out of thin air. He saw himself waking up in a hospital bed to her. He saw her running across a wide open field towards him. He saw the image of her leaning towards him as if to kiss him again.

And then he saw her punching him and all the other images were filed away.

"You punched me!" He said, accusingly. Holly winced.

"I did, didn't I? Listen, Artemis, that was in another time, sort of. It was a totally different situation. Trust me we're-" Artemis decided to cut her off.

"So you admit you punched me?"

"Yes, but like I said, it was a different -" He cut her off again.

"So we are enemies?"

"No, we are not enemies. We were but-" She stopped, thinking about ways she could convince him that they were friends. Maybe, just maybe... _No! No way!_ But the idea stayed in her head.

"But what? We are either enemies or we're not!" She stepped towards him until she was right in front of him. "What are you doing?" Holly leaned in, thinking _human fairy tales better have some merit to them,_ and then -

All his memories came rushing back to him. He finally knew what happened at the end of the her leaning in. Holly had kissed him. Then he remembered the words she had said later. _You're elf-kissing days are over. _He sighed.

"I thought my elf-kissing days were over." She jumped back, smiling. He now knew why he had been guilty. And what Holly had meant when she said it was a different time when she had punched him.

"Artemis! You're back!" His grin widened.

"I remember everything." He then winced, remembering when he had kidnapped her. Holly didn't notice though. Her own grin widened until it barely fit her face. Then she processed his words.

"I wasn't going to kiss you," she lied. "I was going to almost kiss you so you would remember. It worked!" He rolled his eyes.

"Sure, Holly, that's exactly what you're plan was." He was surprised by his own word choice. He decided to cut himself some slack. After all, he just came back from the dead.

She punched him playfully on the shoulder. "Seriously, Artemis. They are over." She had a strange feeling of deja vu.

Artemis now seriously wished he hadn't said that when he did. He watched as Butler, Foaly and Holly all welcomed him back, contributing now and then. However one word stuck in his head. _Unfortunately._

* * *

**Well?** This is mostly romance, as you can see. I suppose from a certain angle it could be : one-sided romance, one-sided friendship; friendship; friendship with hormones involved; etc.

In case you couldn't tell, I was trying to pull one memory from each book. They go from 1-5 7-8 and then 6 with the punching scene coming from either book one or book two, depending on which one you want it to come from.

**Now with stuff that's not important about this one shot.**

This particular one shot had a lot of variation in my head. Most of my one shots that I publish are almost exactly as I thought of them in my head with a few changes here and there. However this one seemed to have free reign.

It was originally not going to be romance or whatever at all. It was supposed to be Holly giving Artemis a brief overview of his life after he couldn't remember and then him struggling to remember. Seriously I even have an excerpt from my head:

_"Would you like the short version or the long version?" Holly asked him._

_"I suppose the short version shall be sufficient for now." He replied, still puzzling to try and figure out how he knew the strange girl._

Then, I decided I shall have a key word you need to use suspiciously scattered across your reviews so I can see how much you read. , I decided that instead some kind of argument of sorts would go on and Foaly would say something about fairy tales having merit, Holly would kiss Artemis who would pass out causing Holly to freak out and then he would wake up. Cue excerpt from my head:

_She kissed him, and all his memories caused him to pass out to which Holly replied to by freaking out. _

_"Look at what you did Foaly," she shouted in panic. Foaly looked offended. _

_"I didn't do anything," he said and Holly glared at him._

_"You gave me the idea." Then Artemis bolted up and Holly felt only instantaneous relief. _

Then key word chimpanzee. Then it was Holly thinking of kissing him, kissing him, Artemis passing out, and then Holly freaking out before he woke up (see a pattern yet?). I think there is an excerpt in need:

_Holly backed up from his limp body, instantly angry with herself. _What were you thinking, Holly? _She kept backing up until she could barely see Artemis. That was not a good idea, the idea to kiss him that is. What had she been thinking?_

_Then she saw him bolt up and she began to run back to him, relief instantaneous. _

Then it was kissing with no passing out with a key word of witch, which was about to happen before I decided against it while I was writing it.

And this was the final key word lo product (product is not a part of it.)

I can do all of my other ideas as a type of series if my reviewers would like. You can also specify a certain one if you would like.

So review fellow Artemis Fowl fans.


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